OK, so why do we need a new set of rules? Let’s see what is here and
how it improves on what has gone before. It is supposed to be broadly
backwards-compatible with existing Mongoose
Traveller materials, but will of course have
resources—sourcebooks and adventures—crafted specifically for it in due
course.

The Introduction begins by explaining what
Traveller is: a science-fiction role-playing game of the far
future that can be used to play out whatever you fancy—and adds that if
you have a favourite SF film or TV series (or presumably book!),
Traveller ought to be able to replicate it
on your tabletop. It touches on the Third Imperium (the Official
Traveller Universe, as it’s known) and
gets a little muddled in the distinction between the players of the game
(that’s you and me) and the characters that they play. I am not (alas) a
Traveller, my character is, the lucky tode!
It talks about the sort of adventures and campaigns you can enjoy and
runs through some game conventions (standard terminology) before
explaining the concept of Tech Levels and, in brief sentences, showing
what each one means from TL0 to TL15.

Next, Chapter 1: Character Creation introduces the unique
Traveller ‘life path’ character generation
process. It is recommended that a group of players generate their
characters together, primarily so as to establish connections between
them—it’s also to be noted that lots of players enjoy creating
characters as a game in its own right even when they don’t need one!
(However there is a new connections bonus that can lead to an additional
skill level for both characters involved.) The process is well explained
with plenty of detail (and suggestions, even here, for adventures) and
there is a large flowchart that makes the process clear. As a
double-spread page that would be fine, it’s worth printing out at least
those two pages from the PDF to get the full benefit. Each career—and
the pre-career options of university or military academy—provides the
character with not just skills but life-events that have in-game
consequences as well as game-mechanical ones. Overall, the actual
process has not changed much, but it is laid out and explained well.
Character generation is primarily human-centric, with a brief mention of
aliens and scant details of Aslan and Vargr—the intention is that they
will be covered in separate sourcebooks. Tucked at the end is a new
career, that of the Prisoner. It’s not one that you choose for your
character, but events that may arise during character generation will
land him there without the option!

This is followed by Chapter 2: Skills and Tasks, which gets down to
the business of explaining how to use the skills that your character has
and the task resolution system. Although still based on the classic
‘roll 2 dice against a Referee-set difficulty’ the use of modifiers
other than those based on the character’s own capabilities has been
replaced by the use of extra ‘boon’ or ‘bane’ dice. These come into play
when conditions are beneficial or adverse to the attempt being made. A
third die is rolled. If conditions are favourable, the player discards
the lowest roll and uses the other two dice to resolve the task as
normal. If things are against him, he discards the highest die roll
before resolving the task. Neat, and a lot easier than having to
determine just how beneficial or otherwise the circumstances might be!
The idea is that task difficulties and applicable modifiers ought to be
fairly standard for any given task, all you need to decide is if the
circumstances under which you are trying to accomplish it warrant a boon
or a bane die to be added to your roll.

Chapter 3: Combat then takes a long, hard look at how fighting is run
within the game. Combat is still deadly, and relatively speedy.
Characters use their skill in the weapon they are using, and wield them
in initiative-order sequence in combat rounds. The system has been
streamlined and integrated with personal combat, vehicle combat and
starship combat all working the same way.

Naturally, getting caught up in a brawl is not the only danger to be
faced in the far future, so Chapter 4: Encounters and Dangers provides
loads of hazards and the game mechanics necessary to deal with them.
Environmental dangers abound… but fortunately there is also a section on
healing. Animals (which may or may not be hostile) are also covered here
with a broad outline of a system to create animals and encounters with
them. Several examples are given—and it can be great fun thinking up
exotic critters for the worlds the party visits in its travels. Animals,
of course, are not the only beings they will encounter, so there is also
a section about NPCs which includes quick generation of them and the
sort of encounters that may be had… there’s even a rudimentary patron
encounter system here for generating really fast adventure seeds on the
fly.

Next comes Chapter 5: Equipment. Starting off with notes on money and
standards of living it soon launches into The Core Collection, a
catalogue of much of what the well-equipped traveller might need—which
is presented like a real-world catalogue complete with illustrations
(well, some of them, and plenty space earmarked for more) and
sales-speak as well as the necessary game mechanics to use them. As well
as the weapons, armour and gear you’d expect, the Core Collection also
includes augmentations—cybernetic or biological modifications to improve
on or even add things to the standard human.

Chapter 6: Vehicles follows; but here the emphasis is on what
vehicles can do and how they are operated. It also includes vehicle
combat. Quite a few examples are provided for those who want to get
going quickly. This is followed by Chapter 7: Starship Operations which
looks at the bread and butter of running a starship and starship
encounters, including things like running costs and starship security.
There’s a separate chapter for starship combat, which allows characters
to play a part in different roles—and makes starship captains worry
about how much power they are using! Both ship-to-ship combat and
boarding actions are covered here.

Next, Chapter 9: Common Spacecraft looks at ships which are familiar
to the experienced Traveller player, but
presents them in a new and visual manner. Statistics appear in a neat
panel that gives you all you need to know, whilst deckplans have gone
isometric. This gives a nice impression of what it would actually be
like to wander around the ship in question and matches up well with the
external views. They won’t work so well as old-style deckplans for
people who like to run combat aboard like a miniatures skirmish, though.
There’s a good range of standard craft here from traders and scouts to
liners and yachts.

Separated out—not everyone likes to use them—is Chapter 10: Psionics.
(They are, however, mentioned within the lifepath parts of character
generation: with several opportunities to be contacted and tested. If
you don’t want to use them, you’ll have to roll again if you get one of
those results.) The default model is that psionics are rare and viewed
with offical caution if not outright hostility—in the Third Imperium,
for example, they are banned. If you do choose to use them, psionic
strength and skills are covered here as well as the psion career path.

Next comes Chapter 11: Trade. This provides a system for conducting
interstellar trade that manages to be quite detailed and yet abstracts
the process to a few die rolls, a neat method that allows a party to
focus as much or as little attention on it as they please whilst still
providing the possibility of a rationale for their travels and an income
to fund it.

Finally, where are you going to travel to? This is covered by Chapter
12: World and Universe Creation which lays out the way in which worlds,
systems and sectors are described and how to design them, and Chapter 13
which details the Sindal Sub-Sector in the Trojan Reaches—the new
setting to be developed for this latest iteration of
Traveller.

Overall, this book presents something that is still recognisably
Traveller but with the benefit of 30-odd
years of game design building on the original concepts. It shows great
promise particularly in terms of integration and streamlining of game
mechanics, and presentation values look as if they will be good
too—although of course in this playtest version quite a lot of the art
is missing. There are also a few typos which will hopefully be caught
before the final version… but it bodes well for the future of the game.